With squirmy bodies and a high tolerance for dirt, worms and kindergarteners have a lot in common. This year, Liv Anderson’s kindergarten class at Morris Jeff Community School is learning all about worms and the cycle of life by composting their lunch scraps to make rich organic soil.

Chris Granger / The Times-PicayuneLiv Anderson, center, shows her kindergarten class how the lunchroom scraps theyâve been composting have been turning into healthy, organic soil at Morris Jeff Community School on Poydras Street.

In the cafeteria on a recent Wednesday, the 26 pupils filled a container with leftover pizza crusts, banana peels and peas — lots of peas.

With brisk claps, Anderson commanded the students’ attention and lined them up to go out to the playground.

Carrying the bin outside is a rotating privilege, and one little girl joyfully waltzed it down the hallway. A classmate, unchosen, crumpled into tears beneath her pink hairbow.

Outside, Anderson reached over a low fence and picked up a covered rubber bin. She plopped it onto the playground and peeled back the lid, revealing lumpy black dirt. Flies ascended, along with a pungent odor. Crowding around the bin, Randy Howard, Sanniyah Lombard and Ethar Alharbi reached out to turn the compost and pluck red wigglers.

When Anderson gave the signal, Kameran Ekperikpe carefully dumped the lunch scraps into the bin. The class cheered.

“They eat our leftover food and make it into dirt,” said Lola Labostrie.

“They like to eat paper — white paper,” added Corey Wade.

“The worms eat the food and they grow,” said Devin Thompson.

“I think it’s teaching the kids a lot about how living things can help us in the environment,” said Rosalind Florent, assistant teacher. “They are excited!”

The project came about when Anderson demonstrated journaling to the pupils by writing about her home compost bin.

“I’ve been composting at my house, and I was trying to explain it to my students,” she said. “They were all really confused about why I would want worms in my house.”

The teacher saw an opportunity for a hands-on lesson in plants, animals and life cycles. An appeal on donorschoose.org quickly netted $300 for a classroom-quality compost bin and worms, which arrived in deli-style containers.

“They had a great time picking them out of the little plastic tubs,” the teacher said. “I was expecting them to be a little grossed out by worms, but they weren’t.”

Anderson, 24, is from Minnesota via the University of Wisconsin, where she majored in Russian. Her hair is the color of a new penny, and it’s cut very short and set off by earrings in the shape of tiny matching squirrels. (“I have dinosaur ones, too.”) She has boxy eyeglasses and a gentle, serious manner. After two years teaching prekindergarten with Teach for America in Baton Rouge, she came to New Orleans with her cat, Zasha, for the job at Morris Jeff.

Principal Patricia Perkins said the project fits right in with the school’s mission to teach students about the web of life in fresh ways.

“Teachers are encouraged to be innovative, to bring their ideas to the table and take leadership roles in making things happen,” she said. The project has been a big hit, she added. “I’ve visited the worms myself two or three times,” Perkins said.

Said Anderson: “It’s definitely led us in directions we didn’t expect.” When mold appeared in the box one day, the class detoured into a lesson on fungus.

In spring, the class will grow beans, planted in the rich soil the worms have created from lunch scraps, Anderson said.

“I’m interested in sustainability,” she said. The project is about learning science and “really understanding that your garbage has to go somewhere,” she said.

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Annette Sisco is community news editor. She can be reached at asisco@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3310.